


Finding the Lost

by Pirateweasel



Series: Grid Myths and Stories [13]
Category: Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: AU, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Alteration, Off the Grid, Violence, self-injury/harm, the voices won't let me sleep until I tell their story, tramautic amnesia/memory loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:11:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pirateweasel/pseuds/Pirateweasel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you know you have lost something important...even if you can't remember what is lost.</p><p>Sam and Tron find something unexpected in the system.  AU post-Legacy</p><p>Rated M for safety in later chapters</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What The Sea Gives

**Author's Note:**

> "I didn't remember how much I missed you," he said, his voice both rough and somehow sad, almost wistful sounding. "I have always missed you; even when you were right there with me."
> 
>  
> 
> Nope, I don't own anything you may have seen of heard elsewhere, including songs, other works, and talented artists--- except my OC. 
> 
> I've got a nice hat; however, I don't think it's worth sueing me for....

They found her on the shore.

 

* * *

 

Unusual power spikes had been reported to Tron, even though he was gone from the Grid almost as much as the User. When the other programs found something that that was beyond their abilities, they were still more likely to go to the security program about it, rather than Sam Flynn. While many programs were still left feeling uncertain around the User, Tron was their protector.  
  
Tron was waiting for Sam at the arcade, when Sam entered the Grid. He needed to talk to Sam about the unexplained power surges. He really didn't want to, didn't like the thought of Sam and unknown things, potentially dangerous things; however, he knew he would be telling Sam about them, anyway. Because as a User, Sam could locate where they were coming from; and would be the one best able to fix whatever had led to the power spikes. And, because if he didn't tell him, Tron knew it would lead to a nasty argument with his lover as soon as Sam found out.  
  
Lover.

The word always sent a frission through him when he thought of it in connection with Sam Flynn. And, whenever he wasn't thinking of Sam, it sent a vague, undefined feeling of missing something, of something being...lost.

He shrugged the sensation off as unimportant to the matter at hand, and went towards the User that was exiting the arcade. They could deal with this issue together.

 

* * *

 

It had not taken Sam long to pinpoint the location of the power spikes as the edge of the Sea of Simulation. The area that was producing the surges was known for having currents that swept the Sea, washing anything that fell into it up on the shoreline.  
They fully expected that they would find some randomly generated code interacting with the Sea itself to draw in and release energy erratically, causing the power spikes that had been reported.  
  
They took a small flyer to the location; Sam, much against Tron's better judgment, piloting. While Sam was often quiet and shy when he was alone with Tron; in all other respects, he was a daredevil and adrenaline junkie. It could make Tron wild with worry sometimes at how quick Sam was to risk himself. Tron was the security program, if anyone should be risking themselves, he argued, it should be him. Not Sam.

* * *

  
It was not long after they had landed and began searching the shoreline that they found the source of the power spikes.  
  
Lying face down on the wet, black sand was a program, its helmeted head turned away from them. The waves continued to roll in, lapping around the program; tugging greedily at it as if trying to pull it back into the dark waters, unwilling to relinquish its prize. Sam began to move towards the apparently injured program, only to be pulled up short by Tron's hand gripping his arm.

"What do you think you are doing?" he asked, frustrated. "He needs our help."

"You don't know that yet,” Tron cautioned. “We don't know who that is or what he is doing here, yet. It isn't safe to just run up to an unknown program without being ready to defend ourselves."

"Seriously? Look at him, man! Those circuits are so pale, you can barely see them!" Sam said, pointing at the still figure lying on the shore before them.  
  
"Sam, if I were conscious and wanted to injure someone, even with my circuits that pale, I could find a way to do it. Especially if that person came up to me unprepared to defend themselves. I'm a security program. I'm supposed to protect this system and its inhabitants. That includes you." The tall security program looked at him, frustrated. “Will you please just let me do my job?"

Sam looked at Tron, his eyes softening slightly as he did so.

"You're right," he said. "I do make it hard for you sometimes, don't I? Honestly, though, I think you are worrying way too much. Go ahead and check him out, if you really feel like you need to; but  **hurry** , I don't think he can last much longer without help."

Tron nodded his head and moved closer to the motionless program, pulling his disc from its dock as he did so. A quick scan of the program as soon as he was in close enough proximity proved that the program really was unconscious; and he rapidly waved to Sam to call him over, redocking his disc at the same time. Tron carefully turned the program over, revealing that  _he_  was actually  _she_. He pulled her further up on the shore, out of the water's edge.

Sam ran to where Tron knelt in the sand near the program, slowing his pace as he grew close enough to see the minimal circuitry patterns that highlighted their gridsuit.

"Oh, man," he said nervously. "She's one of CLU's top warrior programs."

Tron frowned. “You know this program?" he asked, leaning back from her slightly.

Sam shrugged noncommittally.  
  
"Well, kinda," he answered. "She busted onto the Game Grid when I was fighting....Rinzler...." Sam hated seeing the flinch that Tron gave at the name, "and then she almost caught us at the End of Line. Dad managed to knock her out and took her with us on the Solar Sailor."

She's called 'Feral', he told Tron. "CLU seemed to use her much like he did Rinzler," seeing again the subtle flinch at the name. "She only talked to me for a few moments, but she did talk to Dad for a little longer. It was weird, though. I think her vocal processes had been disabled. Dad had to enable them on her disc for her to be able to speak. He said that it looked like CLU had put some sort of...block... on them."

Tron looked at the unconscious program at their feet. Without accessing the 'Rinzler' memory files, he had no way of knowing if the program---Feral---Sam had called her, was a risk to them. She apparently had previous contact with his other programming code overlay; however, Tron had no recollection of her from before the coup.  
  
Although the pattern of her circuitry did set off a niggling feeling of recognition in him.

He didn't like not knowing; however, he would let Sam decide what to do with her.

"It's your call, Sam," he said. "I don't know her. What do you think we should do?"

Sam ran a hand through his hair and blew out a deep breath. He looked over, noting the unhappy look on Tron's face. Tron  _really_  hated not knowing how a potential threat should be handled.

"Let’s get some energy into her, so she doesn't derezz if we try to move her; and then get her into the flyer. We'll take her back and decide what's to be done with her when she's awake and can answer some questions." He turned his gaze back down to the currently harmless figure on the sand. "You should probably restrain her, first. She's a good fighter, and she doesn't hold back to avoid getting hurt."

After Tron bound her hands behind her back with energy cuffs, Sam derezzed her helmet and tried to give the unconscious program some energy. He managed to get a little into her without causing her to choke, and was rewarded by her circuits brightening a little---enough that the color of her circuitry was identifiable. It was unmistakably the same deep red-orange hue that Rinzler's had been.

Sam wasn't sure about this. Feral had stopped Rinzler in the Games arena, only to join him in trying to stop Quorra from helping Sam escape from the lightcycle match. The next time he had seen her, she had ridden the falling elevator down from the End of Line club to attempt to capture the three of them---himself, his dad, and Quorra.

Even when his father had restrained her with his User skills and abilities, she had been unnerving. Dad had never told Sam or Quorra exactly what the program had said to him, but it had left the older man shaken and unsettled as he went to 'knock on the sky'.  
  
And now he had told Tron that they should take her with them. He hoped that without CLU around to give her orders, she would at least listen and make up her own mind as to how she felt about Users. The thought of saving someone only to have to derezz them later was an uncomfortable one. They would put her in quarantine when they reached the building that was being used as the administration center. If she proved to be too dangerous to them and the system, he would delete her when he was out of the Grid. Sam didn't like the idea; however, security program or not, he didn't think that he would ever be able to send Tron in to coldly derezz a program without feeling like CLU. And, he suspected, without making Tron feel like Rinzler.

The tall security program reached down and scooped the slight, limp figure into his arms, lifting her easily. He waited for Sam to begin walking towards the flyer that they had arrived in before speaking.

"She's missing her disc," he said.

Sam glanced over at Tron. No disc meant that backups of her programming and memories were not available to her the next time she tried to reboot. Depending on how long ago she had lost her disc, she might not remember anything, including her name. Maybe this would be easier than he thought. If she met them, talked to them before they gave her a replacement disc---a backup from the system archives---maybe she would be on their side. Maybe. Of course, that was assuming that they could make her a replacement disc. If they couldn't, it would be like dealing with someone who had permanently lost their memory after some sort of head trauma. He would need to give her a new directive, possibly new programming, while they waited for her to learn what her personality was. Sam sighed quietly to himself. Nothing about that would be easy. Easier, in some ways; however, still not easy.

 

He had needed to make replacement discs for Tron, when he found him. Perhaps it had been easier for him to do it that way, working from the other side of the screen. Quorra had refused to let him use the laser to enter the Grid until he could show her that Tron was freed from the Rinzler coding that he had been recoded with. It had been tedious; getting copies of Tron's original coding from Alan, and then carefully picking through the scrambled coding one line at a painstaking time.

It had been worth every moment, he thought to himself, looking at the tall, strong figure of the man next to him. While he had removed the overlaid coding that had reprogrammed Tron into Rinzler, he knew that Tron still carried Rinzler's memory files partitioned away inside of him. Tron had not been able to bring himself to view them yet, having learned just a few of the things that Rinzler had been ordered to do by CLU. He kept them anyway, however, in a sort of self-imposed penance. When Tron had learned of Rinzler's role in the final Purge of the ISOs; he had come to Sam and begged him, his voice shaking as he did so, to delete him from the Grid.

"I was programmed to be security, Sam Flynn," he had said, his face slightly crumpled-looking, as though Tron was fighting back tears. "What kind of protector acts in such a way with its charges? I failed---I failed this system, its programs, your father..." A look of horror had come over his face just before he said, "I have failed my Creator, Alan-1. I…I shouldn't---can't---be allowed to function after having done this."

It had taken quite some time before Tron accepted that Sam didn't hold him responsible for what he had done while under CLU's control.

Most of the time, Sam wondered if Tron would ever feel the same.

 

* * *

 

They loaded the limp figure into the flyer, Tron securing her restraints to the flyer itself, and headed back to the city.


	2. Can Anyone Identify This Program?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, it's what you don't find....

They set up a quarantine field around a room that would be used to keep Feral contained until Tron felt that she was safe to release. After all the problems caused by Kevin Flynn not trusting Tron's 'instincts', Sam was not about to make the same mistake. Feral would not be leaving that room until Tron had determined whether or not she was a threat to Sam and the Grid.

Without a disc, the only way to accurately check her for injuries was for Sam to use his User abilities to code her gridsuit into something else for her to wear. When the suit began to flow away from her limbs, Sam found something unexpected. Or rather, didn't find something. As soon as he could see that there were no injuries that threated deresolution; he went straight from the room in search of someone who could explain what he had just  _NOT_  found.

 

* * *

 

Finding someone who was willing to try to help was harder than Sam expected. Finding someone who wanted to try to help and  _could_  answer Sam's questions was impossible.

Eventually, he found someone who seemed to know  _something_  about her. Help came in the form of an old Fortran77 program.  
The older program had been running almost as long as the Grid itself, having been uploaded onto the system only a short time after Sam's father created the Grid system. Sam had no idea what his dad had been thinking when he loaded the program. After all this time running, the old program badly needed to be defragged, and was prone to freezing up while processing older information.

FORTRAN had told him that, while he had not been the most useful program in CLU's eyes, he had managed to keep from being repurposed the way that so many other programs had.

Feral had always been an unusual program, he was told. No one was certain exactly how long she had been running on the Grid. She had been little more than a rumor for part of a cycle; a story told in low voices about a glitchy little program that CLU kept, the way some programs kept bits. A pet, of sorts. Then, she was seen with Rinzler, doing patrols, for several more cycles. Most programs thought that CLU had given her to Rinzler.

After a cycle or two, Feral was taking place in the Games. She was not as strong as Rinzler, but just as deadly to her opponents. They were CLU's Games champions. She would sometimes be seen around the Grid, but never without CLU or Rinzler. This last bit of information took a while to get out, as FORTRAN locked up.

 

With a frustrated sigh, Sam had needed to stop and defrag the program before it could continue. He felt like he was waiting for someone's senile, cat-loving uncle to remember what he had been talking about. At least the program hadn't tried to call him 'Creator', or confused him with his dad again.

 

Then, FORTRAN said, something happened to her. No one really knew what, but most programs believed that Feral had been injured to the point of derezzing. The rumor was that CLU had saved her, somehow using bits of the Creator's own code to keep her from derezzing. The next time Feral was brought online, CLU had told Rinzler that she was his accessory program, his partner. That she was the only adaptive program on the Grid because she had some of Kevin Flynn's code, the coding that made up the was Creator in her. Whatever CLU did, whether it was combine a program with User code, or make a new program from the same template as the first, she was different. Exactly how, it was hard to say. However, programs that had been around her before did not spark any recognition in her; and she seemed to be indifferent to everything except Rinzler and CLU's commands. What had once been a program who seemed, if not outgoing, at least willing to interact with others when not in the Games or on patrol, was gone. Afterwards, Feral did not interact with anyone other than Rinzler. And she never spoke again. Not even to CLU or Rinzler.

 

  
The old program left after speaking to Sam, continuing on his way to do....whatever it was that he did in the Grid, proud that he had been able to help a User again. The old guy was so happy to feel useful again that Sam decided he would code in a few simple problems for the program to solve later.

 

* * *

 

Sam went back to the administration center, having learned only a little more than he had known prior to speaking with the old program. What little he had learned only seemed to lead to more questions.

What had CLU done to her? Why disable her vocal processes? Did CLU really find a way to combine a program's code with the code that made up a User on the Grid? Was that why she didn't have circuits under her gridsuit? Had Dad found out about it; could it have been the reason why he was so unsettled after speaking to Feral?

And if CLU had managed to combine his father's User code with a program's code; did it mean that---in some way---part of his dad still existed.....in her?

The possibility was....unsettling..... to say the least.  
  
He really hoped that she woke soon. Maybe then he could get answers to some of his questions.  
  
As long as Tron was with him. He remembered a little too well how dangerous she could be.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there's still more coming...
> 
> I hope you folks are still with me...


	3. Do You Remember?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you do, when you don't remember what it is you have forgotten?
> 
> Warning- mention of self-harm/injury in this chapter.

I remember, I remember when I lost my mind  
There was something about that place  
Even your emotions had an echo in so much space  
\----Gnarls Barkley----

 

She blinked eyes that she could not remember closing, and looked around her. White surrounded her as she lay there, rebooting. She felt the pull, the tug that should have loaded her memories and directives from her disc, come up blank. Something was wrong.

She sat up quickly, reaching for her disc as she did so. Her hand found her disc dock empty. Where was her disc? She fought to stay calm, breathing deeply and trying to access any recent memory files; anything that might explain where she was or why her disc was missing.  
  
She could not remember anything.

No. That was not accurate. She could remember what white was, that this was a room; some basic information was available. Just not  _her_ information.

The thought was terrifying, and she was trying not to panic as the feeling of having lost herself stretched out like a huge, yawning abyss at her feet, threatening to swallow her whole.

She could not remember anything; who she processed with, what function she performed, what her directives were... oh, Grid, she couldn't even remember her  _name_.  
  
WHO WAS SHE?

Her hands twisted in the white folds of the ...shift?...that she was wearing. How could she remember the name for the clothing on her, remember that she had never worn anything like this in all her runtime on the Grid, and not remember her name?

Her breath came faster as she desperately looked around the room for anything that might help her to access a memory, her gaze flicking madly from one blank white wall to the next. She could not even see where a door might have been. She was trapped here, in this white emptiness, with no way to find the lost thing that she was looking for. What was lost? What was it she needed to find?

The sudden realization that she had just had a memory glitch struck her like a blow, and she bared her teeth in an unconscious effort to drive away the threat of this memory loss becoming permanent. She backed up until her empty disc dock struck the wall behind her. Her legs suddenly felt too weak to stand on, and she slowly slid down the wall until she was sitting, her knees folded up in front of her so that she could wrap her arms around them and hide her face. She wept, silently, unable to even remember how much was missing.

 

 

* * *

 

  
Tron dropped the quarantine field just enough for Sam to code a door for them. He had insisted on Sam wearing his armor with his suit, although he relented when Sam refused to wear the helmet as well. He had merely looked skeptically at Sam when Sam said that he thought it might make her more nervous and unwilling to listen, and rezzed his own helmet around his head.

"Then be sure to get out of my way if she tries anything," Tron had said, gruffly. "You told me she was one of CLU's best warriors. I'm not dropping that quarantine field without being ready to handle whatever happens."  
  
On the far side of the empty, white room the quarantined program was sitting on the floor, huddled around herself as though to ward off a blow.  
  
She scrambled quickly to her feet as the two of them came into the room; watching them warily as her body slipped into a  
'ready' stance, waiting to react to anything that they might do. She turned to face Sam and Tron as they moved further into the room. Tron recognized the deceptively relaxed and loose look as preparation to defend herself, or attempt to escape, if the chance presented itself. He raised the quarantine field again as Sam's door disappeared.

Sam held his hands up in front of himself, trying to calm the obviously upset program.

"Hey, hey; it's alright. No one here wants to hurt you," he said. "We just want to talk, to ask you a few questions, okay?" Sam waited for a moment before speaking again.

"We'll start with something simple. Do you remember what your name is?" he asked her.

She shook her head, visibly upset by her inability to answer the question.

"Okay, how about...do you remember what your directives are? Your function?"  
  
Sam watched as the program shook her head 'no' in answer to both questions. She was growing more agitated with each question that she had no answer for. Looking at the frustration on her face, he decided to take a chance.

"How about I tell you what WE know about you, and maybe that will help you to remember. Would you like me to do that?" he asked, cautiously.

The hopeful look that she gave him was enough to encourage him to begin.

"Your name is 'Feral'," Sam told her. "You are a type of security program. You were one of the Games champions in the arena. Does any of this sound or feel familiar?"  
  
She appeared to be concentrating intensely, trying to remember anything relating to what he had just told her. After a few moments, she turned a pleading gaze on Sam, motioning for him to tell her more.  
  
Sam took a deep breath. This was the part that could get dangerous. He would need to tell her about CLU and Rinzler.

"You want me to tell you more? Well, you worked with a partner program, named Rinzler. He was a security program, as well. Both you and Rinzler only took orders from the system administrator. A program called CLU."

He looked at her closely before continuing, searching her face for any sign of recognition at CLU's name. When there was no change in her expression, he spoke again.

"CLU used you and Rinzler as enforcers, tracking down, capturing, and derezzing anyone who tried to defy him."

Sam saw her face turn pale as he spoke of her derezzing other programs because they fought against CLU. She looked troubled, and was seemed to be searching the room for...what? He stood, waiting to see what see would do with the information that she now had. She began to back away from him, slowly shaking her head, as if in denial of what she had been told. Feral turned away from where Sam stood, Tron waiting behind him. Her hand rose towards her mouth, as if she wanted to keep words trapped inside.  
  
At least, that was what his first thought was. A moment later, he realized that she was not just holding her hand to her mouth; she was _biting_  it, teeth fastening into her skin. It startled him even more when she dropped to her knees on the floor and began scratching at it. Next to him, and less than a step behind where he stood, he could hear the low whirring buzz of Tron's discs as the security monitor activated them in response to her unexpected behavior.

When she failed to make a single mark by scratching at the floor, Feral made a fist and slammed it against the floor. She repeated the move quickly, two more times, until something odd was smeared on the floor. Instead of cracked pixels, or voxels, a trickle of red leaked from the broken skin of her hand.

She was scribbling on the floor, dipping a finger in the blood, and marking it in loops and dashes; apparently oblivious to the threat posed by either Sam or the activated discs that Tron held in his hands. She would mark a few circles and lines; only to stop and grab her head, rocking back and forth slightly as she did so. Then she would slam her fists against the floor, the wall, any hard surface near her. Sam worried that she may have gone mad---could programs go mad? a portion of his brain wondered--- and moved to stop her from trying to hurt herself more. He was quickly pushed aside by the tall figure who reached her first.

Thankfully, Tron seemed to have the same idea of simply keeping her from hurting herself more, and was only trying to restrain the now panicked program thrashing in his arms. From the look of things, at least some of her combat routines were still available to her; even if she only seemed to be trying to escape, and not trying to injure her captor. Watching her fight to escape Tron was only made more disturbing by the fact that the struggle was taking place in almost complete silence, neither program uttering a sound as they grappled. The only noise was the soft scuffling of their feet.

Sam move closer, so he could execute a forced shut-down on the program. She was shaking her head franticly back and forth, as if to tell him no, teeth bared to warn him away, her dark auburn hair hanging loose around her face, as she continued to look back and forth between him and the marks that she had made on the floor.

He carefully but quickly reached around to where her empty disc dock waited, and shut her down. She immediately went limp in Tron's arms. It would take time for her to reboot again, longer since she didn't have a disc. Sam looked up at Tron, whose helmet was now retracting from his face, and, panting slightly, asked the question.  
  
`"Do you have any idea what she was doing?"

The security monitor lowered the limp figure in his arms gently to the floor. Without looking up, he said, “It’s binary. She was writing in binary."

Sam looked at the unconscious figure that lay at their feet and frowned slightly.

"What could possibly be so important to tell us, that she would do that to herself to write it down?"

Tron sighed and looked over at Sam's face.  
  
"I sometimes forget that you don't read binary as fast as a program does," he said. "She wasn't telling us anything. She was asking for  _you_  to tell  _her_  something, something that she really wanted to hear." Tron's voice sounded tired, almost weary, when he answered Sam's question. There was also something else in his voice. Was it sympathy, sympathy for....Feral?

Sam heard his voice asking the obvious next question.

"What," he stopped and cleared his throat, then began again in a stronger voice. "What did she write?"

His lover looked at him with eyes that held every moment of the more than a thousand cycles of his runtime in them. Tired, pained eyes, and then he spoke; his voice low, yet somehow flat and emotionless.

"Tell me I didn't do this...'," he said. "She wants to hear that it's a mistake; that she did not derezz programs---not because they were a threat to the system, but because they defied CLU. That's what she wanted you to tell her." He looked down at where Feral laid, his face unreadable.

Sam crouched down next to her, brushing the hair back and away from her face, only to arrest the motion of his hand, stopped by what he saw. Tears. Drying on her face, were tear streaks.

Tears and blood. Maybe FORTRAN had been right. Maybe she did hold part of his father's coding. He shook his head to clear it from the thoughts and questions that arose. Time enough for them later.

They left the room, raising the quarantine field behind them as they did so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just saying...any kind of review would be nice. So, why don't you scroll down just a little bit further to that comment box and button? Okay, now...push it.
> 
> c'mon people....please?


	4. System Threat Status: pending more data

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tron requires more data for system security ....what is the threat status of this program?

Awake. Again.

White. Again.

The room waited for her to fill it; an expectant space that needed thoughts or memories to lighten the crushing weight of the emptiness that surrounded her, inside and out.

She sat up, looking around as she did so. There had been two other programs here, hadn't there? When she found that she was alone, something within her relaxed slightly. If she had been wrong about there being other programs here, perhaps she was wrong about other things...without her disc, she could be accessing corrupted memory files. Perhaps the other programs had never been here. Had never told her that she had......her gaze fell on an odd, rusty-brown stain drying on the floor.

"Tell me I didn't do this..."

A sense of horror crept over her. It had not been corrupted memory files. The two programs, the things she had been told, all of it had happened. All of it.

The way the programs had tried to stop her went through her processes. They had tried to keep her from being injured. There was no reason to do so if they had been trying to torment her by falsifying data.

She must have done what the program had said. For some reason that she could not process, she must have derezzed programs without them being a legitimate threat to the system. The program had told her that she was a security program. Her coding must be flawed, corrupted somehow. What was the good of a corrupted security program? SHE was now a threat to the system, herself. Dangerously flawed programs should be deleted; and yet, she did not want to derezz. She did not want to continue as a threat to the system, either.  
  
Feral looked over at the brownish smears on the floor. "Why couldn't the floor have been white?" she thought resentfully. The white was its own presence, hunched over her in this room, waiting for a chance to slip into her code, make her white and empty like it had done to this room. Why couldn't it have made this stain white? It was true that the room would have been emptier without the stain; however, she would not have to keep reading it.

"Tell me I didn't do this..."

They had not done so. They had left her here, instead. And now, all that she wanted was to be as white and empty as the room she sat in. If the white filled and emptied her, would she simply disappear? The thought was an irresistibly attractive one. She would close her eyes and wait. The white would come, if it was invited. She could wait for the white.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Tron walked down the hallway towards the room that Feral was being kept quarantined in. The sound of his footsteps echoed loudly in the empty corridor as he strode briskly, coming to a halt just outside the door. He rezzed his helmet and dropped the quarantine field so he could access the room.

With all of the things that had been asked or told to this program, Sam had somehow neglected to ask the question that needed an answer the most. The most important thing to learn, to Tron's way of thinking.

Was she a threat? Would she prove to be a danger to the system, or more importantly to Tron's thought; would she prove to be a danger to Sam? If she posed a threat to Sam, he would derezz her himself. He would not ask Sam first, would not leave her quarantined for the rest of her runtime. And he would not watch as someone else was forced to be reprogrammed. No, he would do whatever needed to be done, and deal with Sam's anger later.  
  
He entered the room, determined to get his answer.

Something was not right. He could tell as soon as he entered the room. The white room glared back at him, empty and blank, save for the dried stain on the floor, and the still figure sitting before it.

It took less than a nano for Tron to realize what had set off the sense of something being wrong. Feral had not moved when he had entered the room. Not a glance, not a twitch, not even her breathing had changed. It was as if she had not registered that he was there, that he was in the room with her. She was a security program, a warrior. Rinzler's partner. A program with coding of that nature would have known the moment the field dropped, much less when he had entered the room. And yet, she sat unmoving; her gaze fixed upon the stain in front of her.

It seemed  _familiar_  somehow, as if he had found her like this, once before. Before...what? He controlled the urge to shake his head, and ruthlessly chased the string of thought away. That was not why he had come here, after all.

"Program."

His voice echoed through the room, sounding harsh even to his own ears. There was no response from the figure sitting on the floor.  
  
"Program," he repeated. Again, he failed to receive a response. Tron crouched on the floor, leaning towards her, his weight resting on his heel and his bent knee. Her eyes were closed. Her chest barely moved with her slow, shallow breaths. He reached out with his hand, and gently touched her shoulder. Her eyes opened slowly, a dulled gaze meeting his. "Prog--Feral," he said. "Are you processing? You must answer a question."

She looked at him, some small spark of awareness in her eyes letting him know that, however reluctantly, she was listening.

"You are currently in quarantine," he told her. "You functioned as security for CLU, the system administrator program. I am here to see if you are to continue in such a function." He tilted his head towards her, knowing that she could not see his face, could not see the hard look in his eyes as he was speaking. "Do you wish to keep the system safe?" he asked, keeping his voice flat and emotionless. He watched as she slowly nodded her head, watching him as she did so. Let her. He knew from talking to Sam that the most she would be able to see would be her own dark reflection, if that. "Do you feel that Users are a threat to this system?" She looked at him, apparently confused as to why he would ask that as a question, and shook her head 'no'. "If the current system administrator told you that a program needed to be deleted, or that Users had become a threat to the system, would you execute that command task, knowing that they understand these things better than you can, without the sysadmin needing to validate such data to you?"  
  
He watched closely, as she looked up at him, a startled expression on her face. She looked down again and gazed at the rusty-brown stain of binary on the floor.

"Tell me I didn't do this..."

She shook her head again, stronger this time. No.

He gave a long, drawn-out sigh, and stood up. Looking down at her, he spoke again.

"Too bad," Tron said. "With the skills you have shown, even while missing your disc, you would have made a good security program." He waited for her to react. Feral continued to sit there, unmoving, staring at the stain on the floor. Without looking up at him at all, she gave a small shake of her head again, and then ignored him. He watched her for a few moments more, before he realized that she was waiting for something. Waiting for what, though? The thought was suddenly too uncomfortable to continue thinking, and he turned and walked from the room, controlling himself so as not to appear to rush.

Once outside the room, he raised the quarantine field again, and retracted his helmet. Leaning against the wall, Tron hung his head and let out a long, shaky breath. She would not prove to be a threat to Sam, or to the system. He would not need to derezz her. The way she had reacted to his questions, to the insinuation that she would not function as a security program; without her disc, she had not been able to give him false data. Suddenly, he understood just what it was that she had been waiting for. Feral had been waiting for him to derezz her. She had believed that since she would not follow orders to derezz a program without valid data showing such a need, he did not believe her to be suitable for security....making her a program without function. A program without a reason for being. A drain on the system, to be reconciled and reprogrammed, or removed. And since he did not appear to have the ability to recode a program.....he must be the remover.

The sight of her, sitting there unarmored and unprotected by the simple white clothing that Sam had coded for her, rose up unbidden in his mind. She had simply sat there, unflinching, not even moving her hands, either to plead or to defend herself. Simply sat there, patiently waiting for him to derezz her. He let out another rough, shaking breath and pushed himself away from the wall. He did not have time to think about Feral now, he told himself, he still had work waiting for him. However, as Tron walked away, down the hall, one thought continued to echo in his head.

She would never be a threat to Sam, or to the system.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect daily updates until we reach the end....maybe....


	5. Imminent Partition Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you do when memories you didn't know you had come to call?

 

Tron left his lightcycle and began to make his way up the ridge. He needed to get away, away from the city and all that it required from him. Away from programs that still called him 'Destroyer' and screamed that he would always be Rinzler, always be CLU's enforcer. Never mind that CLU was gone, that Sam had removed the Rinzler code from Tron. That Tron had fought free of CLU  _by himself_  to protect the Users in the end. That Tron had been a security program, protecting systems his entire runtime; a runtime that was longer than that of the Grid itself. The fact that Tron was--is-- willing to be derezzed to keep ALL of them safe, even the ones who call him a killer, does not matter. Apparently, some programs will never forgive him.

Tron understands how they feel. After all, HE doesn't forgive himself, why should they do so? Sometimes, though, it is too much to bear. The image of Feral, writing out her plea, blood on her hands, comes to his mind. "Tell me I didn't do this..." He wants to hear someone tell him that, has wanted it since he first heard of what CLU used Rinzler to do. He reached the top of the ridge and started to make his way down it; his booted feet causing the smallest stones to slip and roll, bouncing and clattering off of other stones on their way down the face of the slope. Tron still has Rinzler's memories partitioned away inside of him. Hearing what he did as Rinzler is bad enough; he's not sure he wants to ever remember it.

That's why he's here now. Because Tron doesn't want to remember. The Sea took him in, once; held him, waiting for Sam to find him. He remembers that in his earliest runtimes on the Grid that he came out here simply to watch it, that he enjoyed doing so. Now, Tron comes out here because he needs to. He needs the peace that comes from seeing raw code roll in and out in waves. Tron knows that it was poisoned once, deadly to programs to even touch it. A virus, of some sort, that infected and killed. He can even remember helping Flynn to set up a quarantine to contain the virus in the Sea, to keep it from spreading further. What no one can answer is why it isn't poisoned now. Sam checked it himself, and said that there was no longer a virus in the Sea. It did, however, contain something that Sam called "antibodies". A type of anti-viral protocol, apparently. Strangest of all, Tron had these "antibodies" in his coding as well. He didn't know how they had come to be there in his coding. His first thought had been that it had come from his exposure to the Sea after his fight with CLU, and the fall that resulted. He knows about the fight, because Sam told him of it. Sam had shaken his head at the explanation, however, and told him that the "antibodies" read like long-established code. It must have happened at some point during what Sam calls " _Rinzler time_ ".

Tron looked away, as if he could turn his head and not see the thoughts that the term brought to his mind. He hated thinking about the Rinzler coding, hated that it has ever existed. Visiting the Sea helps; helps him to focus and clear his mind. He has brought Sam here, before; although it is a little too peaceful for Sam's taste sometimes. The soft, slightly gritty feel of the sand of the beach slowed his steps. Tron found himself feeling a little calmer as he crossed the beach and climbed onto the jetty.  
  
When he reached the end of the jetty, Tron settled himself down; one leg hanging over the edge, while he brought the other up, resting his elbow on the bent knee before him. He relaxed, grasping his wrist with his other hand. For some reason, he always leaves enough room for someone else to sit next to him; as though he is waiting for someone to join him. Not for the first time, he thought about his User, Alan-1. Perhaps one day Sam would agree to tell Alan-1 about the Grid, maybe even bring him in it. Tron would like to meet Alan-1, he mused; he would show him everything about the Grid. And then, Tron would show him the Sea of Simulation.

A small laugh makes Tron's head snap to the side. Feral grins at him from where she sits next to him, wearing her gridsuit. "Just who wrote your code, Rinzler?" she asks him. "If he's even a quarter of the man you are, I would have liked to have met him..." The sight of her fades from his sight, and Tron realizes, shakily, that she was never there. Somehow, he has had a memory break through the Rinzler partitioning. This is the first time a memory had broken through, and somehow, Tron is not surprised that it has to do with the program still quarantined.

The memory has taken away any further peace that he might have found, so he stands and leaves.

 

 

 

* * *

 

It was not an easy few microcycles, waiting for Sam to join him in the Grid. More memories had broken through the partition; and Tron was becoming nervous that he would have a memory glitch that would put Sam or the system in danger.

As soon as the portal's beam was seen, a beacon alerting him that Sam was entering the Grid, Tron was on his way to the arcade. When Sam stepped out of the building, the first thing that he saw was a worried-looking Tron waiting for him.  
  
Sam's brow creased at the look on Tron's face.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Has something happened?"

Tron looked at Sam. "I need you to remove the partitioning from the Rinzler memory files," he told Sam. "I need access to those memories."

Now it was Sam who looked worried. "Are you sure you want to do that?" Sam asked. "I mean, do you want to do that... now? I can set it up so you can access some of them; if you don't want to have them all available at once."

Tron shook his head. "No," he said, a determined look on his face. "I'm having memories leaking across the partitioning. I can't risk that happening while I am the system's protection. I need to have them all at once. I can't---I won't--- risk you being hurt if I glitch when we are patrolling because another memory is breaking the partition."

Sam was about to agree, when he noticed Tron's hands were shaking. Not much, not enough for most to notice, but Sam  _knows_  Tron. The security monitor was usually as steady and unmovable as a rock. The barely-there tremor screamed out to Sam that something more was bothering Tron. He stepped closer, and asked quietly, "What is really bothering you, Tron?"

Tron's head dropped and in a hoarse near-whisper he said, "Sam, I don't want to see this; the things that I-- that Rinzler did....I don't want to do this. But, Sam... I  _have_  to do this."

Sam reached out and put his hands on Tron's shoulders. "Hey," he said quietly, ducking his head slightly to look in Tron's eyes. "I'm here. I'm not going to leave you. No matter what happened, what Rinzler did....I love you. And I will still love you. We can get through this." He pulled Tron against him, and whispered against Tron's neck. "It will all work out, somehow. I promise." Tron's arms came up and wrapped around Sam.

"Don't make promises that you might not be able to keep, Sam," he said his voice gruff with suppressed emotions. "I love you, too. When I process these memories...you might not want to be with that person. If you don't...I understa---"

"Shut up," Sam told him, fiercely. "I said I'm not going to leave you." Sam stepped back and took a deep breath. "Okay, give me your disc, and I'll remove the partition. Do what you need to do, and then we can get on with our lives." He took the offered discs, and his fingers began to dance, moving through the code. "Is there anything that needs my attention, while you are doing this?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady, as though it was a routine trip to the Grid. Almost anything to distract himself from what Tron was about to do.

Tron nodded and spoke up. "Have Norton and some of the others check out the Bostrum ruins for gridbugs. There's a salvage and rebuilding team that wants to see if it can be reclaimed; and it needs to be cleared first." He paused for a moment, and then said, "Feral needs a replacement disc; if a backup can be made from the system archives. She's not a threat to the system." Tron's voice was stern as he continued to speak. "Don't drop the quarantine; though, she's still a threat to herself until she has a disc. After she has her replacement disc..." the tall program shook his head. "I don't know what will happen when she can access her coding."

"Right," Sam said, looking up at Tron as he closed the coding on Tron's discs. "That should take care of this for you. Security patrol to Bostrum, replacement disc for Feral, wait for you to give her the disc, don't drop quarantine field." He handed Tron the discs. "I'll wait for you to do what you need to do. You can give her the new disc when you're ready. When I'm done, I'll meet you in our quarters."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay with me, folks...it going to get a bit rougher on everyone from this point on...
> 
> Oh, and feel free to comment; it keeps me going some days....  
> No, really....I mean that....


	6. Arguments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some arguments are harder than others to have. Some things you wish you didn't remember, even if you needed to...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you thought they were having a rough time earlier....

* * *

 

Tron stood in the darkened room, staring at the discs in his hands. The only lights in the room came from the circuit coding in the walls and floor, and the stray beams from passing vehicles that found their way in through the large window. The entire trip to the quarters that he shared with Sam, he had carried his discs in his hands, not willing to put them on his disc dock. While merely syncing up his discs should not have caused him to view memory files until he pulled them up, Tron had been unwilling to risk it. Even now, he felt like he was holding a disc with a virus on it; a Trojan or a worm program that was waiting to be uploaded so it could strike.

He looked balefully at the discs that he held. The memories from the time he spent as Rinzler were now available; he could access them as soon as he docked his disc, and still he found himself hesitating.  
  
He didn't want to do this; did not want to see the things that Rinzler had done. Hearing about them had been bad enough. Seeing them being done,  _feeling_  him doing them, was something he never wanted to experience. However, he  _HAD_  to do this; if memories were breaking across the partition now, they would only continue to do so. It would be only a matter of time before he would lock up and glitch if he continued to ignore them or tried to fight them. It was a risk he couldn't afford to take.

Gripping his discs firmly, he reached back and docked them.

It took less than a picocycle for the discs to sync with his system, the presence of the newly available memories causing his eyes to flash bright, glowing blue as they did so. Then the flash was gone, and he could feel the weight of the memories; as close to a thousand cycles worth of memories made their presence known. He reached for them, cautiously, and tried to pull up some of the last memories he had as Rinzler.

The memories came, tumbling one after the other. Tron heard himself as he growled out, "I fight for the Users!" and rammed his lightjet into CLU's. Saw himself fighting in the arena with Sam; watched Sam's face as Sam saw him drop down from above, his discs poised at Sam's throat to derezz.

"No!" he heard himself cry out, his voice hoarse in the dark room. Tron pulled back, fled from those memories, left them still partially unviewed. He did not want to see himself injuring Sam. He  _loved_  Sam. He tried to pull up another memory, this one from before Sam Flynn had entered the Grid for the first time. Tron had planned on viewing the memories slowly, if he needed to; to see enough that he would not be caught off guard when one pulled up. He had expected to pick a file and scan it to see what it contained, and view the ones that he felt were useful.

Instead, the memories began to open_files and run_files without Tron previewing them; mixing his memories with Rinzler's to then crash over him in an overwhelming wave of information. Memory after memory played out in his mind; smashing against the defenses that he tried to put up, grinding them into powder. He saw himself derezzing program after program: rebel Basics and ISOs alike. Heard the crowds in the arena chanting his name, roaring "derezz, derezz..." as he defeated his opponents. Watched as he reduced the other combatants to piles of broken pixels and voxels, and as he gloried in his ability to do so. Saw himself bow and go to do CLU's bidding; tracking, capturing, and ultimately, derezzing rebels.

Tron fell to his knees, his teeth gritted as he barely managed to catch himself from slamming into the floor. The memories continued to come: another program, young and dark-haired, his face determined as he told Tron that by defying CLU, he HAD made a difference. Beck. Tron had known Beck; had trained the young program to take his place, once. The face of his second-in-command swam into view, CLU's voice saying, "I made Dyson perfect again." Watched as he was followed by a bit; an unexpected fondness for the unknown bit warming him at the memory. He saw himself fighting a program, felt his surprise as they---no, she---fought back with a ferocity he somehow knew Rinzler had not seen in hundreds of cycles; pressing the attack, surprising him with unexpected tactics. Watched her face, as pinned down and anticipating deresolution, she still fought. The face of the defiant program was familiar.  
  
It was Feral's face.

More memories involving Feral played themselves out. Tron watched as he---no,  _Rinzler_ \--- he told himself fiercely, beat her at CLU's orders. Saw her looking at him, her gaze serious, as she told Rinzler that her friend had been forced to do something; that CLU had hurt her, not Rinzler. Saw himself obeying orders from CLU to restrain her, so that the sysadmin could deliver a beating to her as a punishment for disobeying an order CLU had given. Heard her voice as she flatly told CLU that no matter how many times he called her a program, they both knew that she was a User.

A User. Feral was a User. It explained some of the mysteries about her, and only increased others. Sam would need to be informed.

Tron called up more memory files involving Feral, open_files and run_files randomly. He watched as she taught Rinzler a language of gestures; called him her only friend on the grid; and battled the larger, sea-birthed gridbugs with him. Heard Rinzler's voice, rough and with its ever-present growl, incredulously saying to her, "You  _stabbed_  CLU with a hair accessory?" Heard the same voice snarling angrily at her as he hauled her upright and off of her feet, a handful of her gridsuit clutched in his fist. Saw as Rinzler's fist pounded against a quarantine field as that growling voice snarled again; this time directed a program that lay with its circuits dark and empty on the other side of the field: "Feral! Don't you dare! You owe me a glitching song!" Felt the anger and pain at the loss of Rinzler's only friend; the incredible sense of relief when somehow, Feral rebooted from what should have been deresolution, even for a User.

More memories played out as Tron watched. He watched as she learned that Rinzler had once been Tron; felt Rinzler's surprise when, after initially being angry with him for not telling her earlier, she told him that he was still Tron. That he was both Rinzler and Tron, and declared that he was "RT" from that time on, at least to her.

Amazement went through Tron, watching as she nervously admitted to Rinzler that she was in love with him. A User, in love with Rinzler?! Rinzler had been a kind of monster, CLU's emotionless enforcer! How could any User have ever fallen in love with him; much less a User that he had seen in memories being beaten brutally by Rinzler?

Equally shocking was the memory that had begun with Rinzler shoving her, hard, and demanding that she fight him. Tron had expected to watch as the memory ended with another beating. Instead, he had seen her give an oddly dangerous smile to Rinzler and heard her say, tauntingly, "Make me." The rest of the memory had caused his circuits to flare and run uncomfortably hot as Tron learned that not only had Feral been a User, and in love with Rinzler, but had been  _LOVERS_  with Rinzler. Tron felt his heart give a strangely familiar clench as she told Rinzler, her voice fierce in his ear, "You come back. You come back, or I swear, I will make this place desolation before I stay here as it is without you. You come back to me." Saw the fear in Feral's eyes as she begged Rinzler to keep her safe, somehow sending the message _and_  all of her memories to Rinzler through contact between their circuits. He felt Rinzler's horror as CLU's coding swallowed Feral whole; taking everything that she had been, and rewriting her code, a  _User's_  code, to make her as perfect as Rinzler.

  
Her memories. Somewhere, hidden behind walls of his own making, Rinzler had held her memories for her; keeping them safe from CLU. She would need them back, to become herself again, and not just another version of CLU's security program.

  
The remaining memories that he viewed showed them to both be changed. There was no sense of loving her, or sign that she loved him in those memories. There were odd moments, when the two of them, as partners, had experienced the need to be closer; memories of a glitch that she had reacting unexpectedly, of touches that they  _needed_ , but could not explain why. CLU had apparently reinforced his coding rewrites on both Rinzler and Feral, checking the coding frequently to ensure that the partitioning between Tron and Rinzler was not weakening. No doubt CLU had done the same to Feral. Sometimes, however, he could detect a feeling of loss from Rinzler; the feeling that something was missing, even if he could not identify what it was that had been lost.

Tron suddenly felt as though he was being crushed by the weight of realization. That oddly familiar feeling of something being missing, something being lost....that feeling had come from Rinzler.  _Feral_  was what had been lost; Feral, and the love that she and Rinzler shared. A loss that was now making itself painfully known to him. He was  _TRON_ , not  _RINZLER_....why did he feel as though he had just been told that he lost someone, and that he hadn't lost them yet, all at the same time? He couldn't....he loved Sam...didn't he? He couldn't be in love with someone that he didn't know; wasn't that impossible? A small voice in the back of his mind pointed out that he had known her, once. "No!” he thought fiercely. " _Rinzler_  knew her, loved her, not Tron. Not me." 'You  _are_  Rinzler,' the voice argued, 'whether you want to accept it, or not.'

Tron panted as he knelt on all fours on the floor; feeling as though his circuits were overheating. "Not me," he tried to growl out the denial. "I love Sam." He did,  _HE DID_  love Sam; he didn't love anyone else. He had loved Yori, once, but she was gone. Loved her, lost her, and finally found love again in Sam.

While all of his processes read his love for Sam as valid data, as solid as a piece of fixed code; the denial of any love for Feral caused a part of him to begin howling, wailing out its loss in the dark reaches of his coding. He shook his head. He was not Rinzler! Not any part of him was Rinzler; it was all CLU's coding re-writes. He had failed before, by not being able to defeat CLU, failed in so many ways; however, there was no part of him that made up Rinzler!

  
"You know that's not true."

The voice, deep, rough, and with the edge of a distorted growl to it, interrupted his thoughts.

"You know as well as I do,  _Tron_ , that  _I AM_  you. Not as nice as you, certainly...but you, none the less. We both have the same drive to protect the system and its programs--"

"You derezzed them! You fought for CLU!" Tron cried out, uncaring as to whether he had just spoken aloud, or only in his head. The reflection of his face in the dark gloss of the floor stared back at him; as though Rinzler was watching Tron's reactions to the ongoing conversation.

"Yes," replied the voice, calmly. "I did. I fought for the system as directed by the sysadmin. I followed my coding. That does not mean that I did not want to protect them. My need to protect the system led to my only friend having the same need and drives to do so, as well. Or have you not looked to see how it is that the Sea no longer holds a virus?" There was just a little bit of anger beginning to leak around the edges of the voice, now.

Tron shook his head. "I saw you in the arena," he said accusingly. "You enjoyed derezzing your opponents. All those programs...you would have derezzed Sam, if you could have--"

"Oh, quit supplying false data, Tron," the voice snarled, the growl-- _Rinzler's_  growl--now evident. "I enjoyed a challenge, the same as you do; or do you not feel that same hot thrill when you take on a virus or a swarm of gridbugs? And as for Sam, you should review those files again, see what actually happened. Maybe instead of insisting that you don't love Feral; which, by the way, would mean that  _I_  don't love her, and I highly recommend that you kill_9 that process  _NOW_ ; you should be glad that she was smart enough to see that he was a User, and cared enough about  _us_  that she stopped us."  
I would have derezzed Sam Flynn. I would have done so in disc wars; and again on the lightcycle grid. Feral is the reason that he made it out of the arena each time, and she paid for it. She did so to protect  _you_ , Tron; she was the only one who knew that we are both the same--"

"I'm not the same as you," interrupted Tron, snarling himself, now.

"Both the same program," the voice continued, ignoring him, "and cared for both of us. Why do you think she called us RT after she found out that I had once been you? She was the one who pointed out that you were still in here; and she protected you from CLU in ways that I couldn't. She has paid more than once to keep  _you_  safe, because she loves  _us_. Not me, not you,  _us_."  
So...stop whining and cringing that we're separate; we're not. Stop saying that you can't love her; because you do. She has spent her entire runtime here trying to keep you safe....what are we going to do to keep her safe, now? Because that's what you do when you love someone, isn't it? You want to keep them safe?"

 

It's hard for anyone to argue with themselves. Both sides already know how it will end...it's merely a matter of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you that things will get any easier for them...
> 
> Now, by all means, feel free to scroll down to that lil' comment box and type in a review. Got it typed? Okay, now push the comment button....


	7. I Missed You...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are times that remembering what you were missing doesn't make things easier. It makes them harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only thing harder on Tron than remembering...is having to tell Sam.
> 
> And no, getting drunk is not a good coping mechanism; however, sometimes it's the first one that comes to mind.

* * *

 

The room was dark when Sam reached their quarters. At first, he wondered if the room was empty. Perhaps Tron had gone elsewhere to access Rinzler's memories, and had not returned yet. A soft 'clink' of glass on a hard surface caught his attention.  
Sitting in one of the large armchairs that faced the window, he could see Tron, a dark shape outlined against the faint lights that came in through the window. A large bottle of energy, more than half-empty already, rested on a small table nearby; Tron's hand wrapped loosely around the neck of it. As Sam watched, Tron raised the bottle again and drank more of the energy from it.

"Tron," Sam called, his voice soft, not wanting to startle Tron. Not that he had ever been able to sneak up on the security monitor before. "Are you alright?"

"Do you have her disc?"

"Feral's disc? Yes. The memory on its badly fragmented; I don't know how much she'll be able to access at first. Maybe we should---"

"She's a User, Sam." Tron's voice was rough, heavy with some emotion that Sam could not identify. "Rinzler's accessory program, CLU's other top enforcer, is a User. He recoded her. CLU  _rewrote_  a User's code. He took everything from us--from her, and rewrote her into his idea of perfection. At least, as much as he could. She fought him, Sam; she fought CLU with everything that she had, in every way that she felt that she could."  
And when she was finally trapped, when she couldn't escape; she asked Rinzler---asked me--- for help, to keep her safe."

Sam took a few steps closer, so that he could rest his hand on the back of Tron's neck. "You did what you could," he said, "I know you, Tron, and there was nothing that you could have done to stop---"

"What are you talking about?" Tron asked, twisting himself to look back over his shoulder at Sam, the bottle in his hand forgotten for the moment.

"Feral," Sam said, confused. "You didn't fail her; I know you must have done everything that you could...."  
  
"Sam," he spoke, his voice oddly patient and a little sad. "I didn't fail her, because she asked Rinzler to keep  _her_  safe...not her render. Rinzler hid her memories. All of them, even the ones she had before entering the Grid, were hidden on his discs." Tron's voice was quiet and some-what far off as he said, "He kept her safe. And now, I need to keep her safe." He lurched up from where he sat in the chair to stand, a little unsteadily, the bottle still clenched in his hand. "I need her disc."

"Whoa, Tron...easy, man," Sam cautioned, holding a hand out to the security monitor in case he stumbled. "Are you...drunk? What have you been doing to get in this condition? I mean, I've seen you put away enough energy to overcharge any other program on the grid and not end up like this....and that includes that unrefined stuff you drink---that, I swear, tastes like ammonia and battery acid."

Tron straightened up to his full height and looked at Sam. "I'll be fine. I'm going to give her the disc, and then you are going to get her out of the Grid."

Sam gave a small frown, his forehead creasing slightly as he did so. "I don't think that's such a good idea. It's probably better to wait for her to recover all of her memories first; even if she is a User. I can always--"

"Take her out now," interrupted Tron. "There is no 'even if', Sam. She's a User, and you need to get her out of the system. She can recover out in your world. But she can't stay here; not now. Take her out."

"What is your problem?" Sam asked, exasperated. "Since we found her, you have been acting strange. You don't want me near her without you, but you have no problem sneaking in to talk to her without me," his voice grew harsh as he continued speaking, "Oh yeah, I knew about your visit. You tell me that you have to have access to all of the Rinzler memory files at once; I find you here, drunk; and now she has to leave the Grid as soon as you give her the new disc? You can't even give her some time to  _start_  to process her disc? Just what do you have against her?"

"You have no idea what you are talking about, Sam," Tron said, heat coloring his words slightly as a warning tone came into his voice. “I don't have anything against her; and she can't stay here."

"Why, Tron?" Sam asked nothing if not persistent. "Exactly why can't she recover here, in the place that she's been living for apparently almost the last two hundred cycles? Why do you have such a problem with that?"

"Because I can't be here with Rinzler's lover and my lover at the same time!" Tron yelled, his temper exploding. “Because I can't leave her in here when I can't go near her without remembering what she means to Rinzler. Because she belongs in your world, Sam; and because I love you; and I don't want to see your face every time you see me react to her if---no, when---I run into her on the Grid! She was Rinzler's partner; do you really think that if she stays on the Grid, she won't want to try to work with me?" Tron threw his hands up as he continued. "And every time she calls me Rinzler..." his voice trailed off. “Just...take her out of the Grid, Sam," Tron said, tiredly, dropping his hands back to his sides. "It's where she belongs, after all. Take her home." He reached out and took the disc out of Sam's unresisting hand, refusing to acknowledge the shocked look on Sam's face. Disc in hand, Tron walked out of their quarters.

 

 

 

* * *

  
She paced the white room, unable to sit still any longer. She had no way of telling how long it had been since she had seen another program. She didn't know why she was functioning still. The last program had seemed to indicate that she would be derezzed. Or reconciled. She didn't know which would be worse. Not that it would matter; she would not remember anything after either took place.

The last program had seemed...familiar...somehow. She shook her head at the thought. She didn't know how that could be possible; after all, she couldn't remember  _anything_.

She continued to pace the room, rubbing absent-mindedly at her aching hand. What was wrong with her render to cause it to glitch like it had? It wasn't normal for a program to leak red liquid instead of pixels or voxels. She gave a small, mental shrug; whatever the reason, at least it had proved to be useful. Her breath left her as she gave a short huff of annoyance. She wasn't looking forward to being recoded, or derezzed; however, this state of not-knowing was, in its own way, almost worse. If only she knew something...

She gave a small scowl at the thought. She  _did_  know something, now. She would try to be more careful as to what she asked for, next time; if there was to be a next time. Most of what she had learned horrified her.

So she had learned her name--Feral--and that she had been coded to function as security. What use was security, if it failed to keep the programs in a system safe? From what her earlier visitors had told her, the system's programs had likely feared her more than a swarm of gridbugs; and had been right to do so.  
  
And that last visitor...well, it seemed obvious that he no longer thought that she was suitable to fulfill her previous function. This in itself was a strange kind of relief. She would not be used as an enforcer against the very programs that she wanted to keep safe. So, she would be recoded and reprogrammed, or derezzed. With that knowledge, knowing her name seemed trivial. After all, she wasn't likely to have it much longer, no matter which option the system administrator chose.

  
She felt the quarantine field drop, even before the door opened behind her. She turned to face the door, determined that she would not beg, or cringe. She would accept whatever fate had been chosen for her with her eyes open and her head up. Despite her thoughts she could not keep her eyes from widening slightly as the tall, dark program who had been her last visitor stepped through the doorway. This was not the sysadmin. This was a security program. There was only one reason that she could think of that a security program would be here, after his last visit.

Very well. Deresolution it was, then. She raised her chin a little higher, and tried to look where she thought his eyes might be, behind the sharp, dark planes of his helmet. The program stepped towards her in silence---silence? He shouldn't be silent, he always had a soft...soft…she couldn't remember---and she involuntarily took a step back. And another step, and another, as the program continued to walk toward where she stood. She stopped as she felt her empty disc dock hit the wall behind her. The tall program stopped in front of her, and reached out his left hand.

She waited, surprised that the hand did not have a disc in it. What did he mean to do? Derezz her with his bare hands? She knew, somehow, that while it could be done, it was unusual to do so.

His hand came closer, and she felt his gloved fingers brush against her arm. Startled by the touch, she looked down, to watch as his fingers slid up her arm and gently pushed the shoulder strap that had fallen back into its place on her shoulder. She looked up at the blank, black, faceless helmet in front of her; confused as to what was happening.

The helmet tilted, just a little, and a voice came from it. That strangely familiar voice that she could not remember.

"Feral," the voice said, deep and gruff, with just the barest hint of a distorted growl to it; and it was so  _familiar_  and so welcome that she closed her eyes to  _feel_  it when it spoke again. "I'm sorry," the voice continued; "I'm so sorry." The hand on her shoulder moved again, lightly up and across her shoulder, slipping up her neck, to cup her face; holding it as though it were something incredibly precious to the program standing before her. Feral's eyes flew open at the touch on her face. Her breath came in shallow sips, not wanting to cause the hand to move, to stop touching her.

She watched as the program spoke again.

"I didn't remember how much I missed you," he said, his voice both rough and somehow sad, almost wistful sounding. "I have always missed you; even when you were right there with me."

She was almost startled enough to move away from the hand. With him? Did he know her, somehow? Who was this program?  
  
The hand dropped suddenly from where it rested, cupping her face, to fall beside his hip.

"Here is your disc," he said, abruptly, handing the disc that he held in his other hand out to her. She reached out slowly and took the proffered disc in her hands. "Sync up; Sam Flynn will take you to where you need to be when you are ready." The security program turned and began to walk away from her, towards the door. When he was almost at the door, he stopped. "I miss you still," he said; and then he walked out of the door, letting it close behind him.

Feral stared at the closed door, motionless, as she tried to process what had just happened.

  
How did she know this program?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still with me? Because we're not done yet...
> 
> All questions and comments will be answered if you ask them. Eventually. So why don't you type something in that little box right below here? Go ahead, I'll wait....


	8. Transfer and Sync

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to give Feral back her memories, fragmented though they may be....

* * *

* * *

 

Sam walked quickly down the corridor, turning the occasional corner, as he made his way towards the room that Feral was being  
quarantined in. It hadn't been as though Tron had tried to make a secret out of where he was going, or what he was going to do. Once Sam had gotten over the shock of what Tron had told him---" _I can't be here with Rinzler's lover and my lover at the same time! ...I can't go near her without remembering what she means to Rinzler..._ "---and started to follow Tron; the program was already well on his way. Apparently, no matter how good Sam is on a lightcycle, he still isn't as good as a certain security monitor; even if said security monitor is drunk. He just hoped he would get there before Tron....did what? He wasn't even sure what it was that he was worried Tron would do. He turned the last corner leading to the quarantined room, only to come to a sudden stop at the sight in front of him.

Tron was standing next to the door of the quarantined room, leaning against the wall, his left hand and forearm holding his weight as his helmeted forehead pressed against the wall. He looked as though he was trying not to fall, as though Tron had somehow been injured. He did not seem to hear Sam walking up to where he stood---first time for everything, Sam thought wildly---and at the same time seemed to be listening to something or someone that Sam could not hear.

"Hey, big guy," Sam said quietly. "You already give her the disc?"

Tron lifted his head slightly and nodded, not looking at Sam as he did. "I transferred all of her memories from Rinzler's files onto her disc," he said, his voice slightly hoarse. "She'll have the ability to access them the next time she syncs with her disc...even if the files are fragmented. I don't know what else I can do..." He straightened up and, still looking straight ahead, said, "You will need to remove the block that CLU put on her vocal processes. After that, well, she'll be able to tell you more when the two of you go back to the User world." Without looking at Sam's face, Tron walked away, saying, "I'll meet you at the portal; I want to make sure you get home safely."

Sam watched as the tall program started to leave, and Sam knew,  _KNEW_ , with absolute certainty that if he couldn't stop Tron now... that the next time he saw Tron would likely be the  _last_  time he would ever see him. "Tron," he called, hoping desperately that he would at least listen. Sam felt a sense of relief that was quickly squashed as the dark figure in the hallway came to a stop. Stopped, but did not turn to face him. "I haven't changed, Tron," he said, his voice low as it fought its way past the sudden tightness in his throat. "I still love you...as much as I did the first time I said it. I don't care about anything else, I just...I love you." He watched as the helmeted head of the man he loved tilted down and a little towards Sam as he spoke; and then, without a word, continued to walk away.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sam opened the door to the room that Feral was kept in and walked thru it. Inside, he saw her head snap up to meet him, the disc in her hands forgotten for the moment. He watched as she stepped back, her eyes on him the entire time.  
  
The first few times Sam had seen her move, even knowing that she was trying to kill him, it had been impossible for him to not notice the wild grace of her as she moved. It was like watching a big cat stalking prey. It was like watching Tron, when he was fighting, he realized. A kind of barely restrained, incredibly deadly grace that could go from a dance, to destruction in the blink of an eye.

She still moved with that grace; only now, instead of moving like a leopard or tiger, confident in herself and her ability, it was the wary grace of a cat that had been kicked at too often. Her eyes watched him as if to judge what he would do next, and if she would need to protect herself from his actions. He had to admit, it was distinctly unnerving. He'd never had anyone look at him as if they thought he might try to harm them, before. Worry about him hacking into Encom or worry about him messing around with their programming, sure. But worry about what  _he_  would do to  _them_? No. No, this was the first time, and Sam found that he didn't like the feeling.

"Hey," he said, nervously. "I, uh....I came to try to fix your voice? So you can talk again?" The figure on the other side of the room continued to regard him silently, her hands turning the disc they held. "Umm...I promise, I'm not gonna hurt you. I do need to see your disc to take the block off of it, though. Can I...will you let me hold it?" The question was met only with more silence.

'Okay,' Sam thought. 'Time to haul out the big guns. Try using the ol' puppy dog eyes, Sam my man; it used to work on Lora and Alan. Alright, it only worked on Alan when you were younger; but you sure can't arm-wrestle her. Even if she doesn't remember it now, she can wipe the floor with you. And what are the odds that she  _won't_  remember how to pound you if you tried to take her disc now?'

  
He took a few steps to get closer to her, and stopped. Ducking his head a little, Sam tried to give her the most harmless and sincere look that he was capable of. "I just want to help," he told her. "And then, once you've got your voice back, we can get you out of here. You would like to get out of here, right?" 'C'mon, puppy dog eyes; do your stuff,' he thought to himself. He held his breath, waiting; as Feral slowly, hesitantly, held her disc out to him. He reached out one hand to take the disc, trying not to move suddenly, conscious of the look of suspicion in her eyes even as she offered him the disc.

Sam let out his breath, slowly. "Thank you," he said, "Let's get your voice back to you." He accessed her disc, opening up incredibly dense amounts of coding, even more complex than Quorra's. It took a while to find the block that CLU had placed on her vocal processes. The only way that Sam had been able to find it was that the coding for CLU's block was so distinctly different from the majority of her code. Honestly, with Tron telling him that Feral was a User, he would have been too nervous to try to remove it, if the block hadn't stood out so much. Carefully, oh so carefully, as though he were handling something made of razor-wire and glass shards wrapped around an infant; Sam unraveled and removed the block. Finally, the last strings of code pulled free. With a relieved sigh, he straightened up and closed the files on Feral's disc, handing it back to her.

"I don't know if you tried to sync up before I got here," Sam said, releasing his hold on her disc. A shake of her head answered him. He shrugged slightly. "Well, you need to sync with it now, to update the block's removal. Sync up, and give it a shot." A small tilt of her head and a slightly confused look greeted that saying. "I mean," he told her, "sync up your disc, and see how your voice sounds."

  
Feral took a deep breath of her own, letting it out in a nervous little 'huff'. Sam watched as she took a step back and away from him, and reached back to dock her disc. He could see when the sync took effect, her eyes flashing the red-orange of her circuits as it occurred. She stiffened slightly as she synced with her disc, notifying her system of the removal of the vocal block. A moment later, and it was done; leaving only what looked like a slightly confused program staring at him.

"Did it work?" Sam asked. "I mean, can you talk now?" She looked at him, and slowly nodded, giving Sam an uncertain look; as though unsure of what to do next. "Is something wrong? You aren't talking..." he said. Feral lowered her gaze, her mouth opening as though to speak, only to close the next moment.

"Is it that...you don't know what to say?" he questioned. Her eyes flew to his, a look of almost relief on her face at his words as she nodded. "Just...say anything. Let out the first sounds that come," Sam told her.  
  
She nodded, raised her head, closed her eyes, and Feral... _sang_....

The song floated out, the notes clear and somehow bell-like on the air....

  
When Logic and Proportion  
Have fallen so I'll be dead  
When the White Knight is talking backwards  
And the Red Queens are ahead  
Remember, what the Dormouse said  
Feed your head, Feed your head....

Sam felt an eerie sensation climb up his spine as the echoes of the last of the song hung in the air of the room. Seriously, Jefferson Airplane? How long had she been in here, exactly? Feral lowered her head and opened her eyes to look at him. Her startled expression told Sam that the song had surprised her as much as it had him.

"Let's get you out of here," he said, offering his hand to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a really bad idea to drive while your drunk. Even if you are Tron.
> 
> Stick around, we're almost there....


	9. Time To Leave...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to take Feral out of the Grid...

  
It was easy enough to convince Feral to follow him out of the room. It was a little harder to get her to join him in the flyer for the trip to the portal. But nothing had prepared Sam to expect what happened when she saw the bridge to the portal.

Sam had needed to rebuild it before the portal could be reached again. The bridge that they had had their final confrontation with CLU had been destroyed by the Reintragration of CLU and Kevin Flynn. The one that led to the portal now, however, used the same template as the original; making the new one identical to the original.

At the edge of the bridge, Feral came to an abrupt halt. "CLU," she said.

Sam stepped up next to her. "Yes," he told her, "CLU was waiting for us here."

Feral shook her head at the words and glanced over at Sam where he stood. "Not just you," she replied. She took a few steps further onto the bridge. Her voice seemed distracted as she looked out over the bridge, seeing where the Sea of Simulation rolled and waved below. "This...we fought....he was stronger--always stronger---lost my disc... CLU threw me...here...." she waved her hand at the bridge, "into there..." Feral looked down at the Sea.  
  
"Why were you fighting CLU?" Sam asked her, curious.

"Main program...fight for Users...last order." She looked up at Sam. There were tears in her eyes as she spoke again. "Didn't want...should have stayed...helped...lost my partner...lost...him." Feral's voice was small and broken as she said the last few words. Feral turned her attention back to the Sea, apparently mourning her partner's loss.

Sam's eyes grew wide as he understood what she was saying. Dear God, he thought, she's talking about Rinzler. Tron sent her to try to stop CLU when he broke through the Rinzler recoding. The implications staggered him.

Feral had left her partner---her friend and lover, according to Tron--to try to stop CLU; to help Sam, his dad, and Quorra to escape the Grid. She had left Rinzler to fall into the Sea, thinking that he would derezz; and fought CLU, not knowing if she would survive herself, because the last thing that she had heard him say was, " _I fight for the Users!_ " It was only freak chance--some sort of miracle--that had kept her from dying in the Sea. Sam had accessed the system to retrieve Tron and keep him safe soon after he and Quorra left the Grid. Feral had apparently been lost in the Sea for almost thirty full cycles before she washed up on the shore.

He looked at the program--woman, he reminded himself--standing beside him. No wonder Tron wants to feel that she is safe, Sam thought. He thinks that he sent her off to what should have been her death...to help us; to  _Fight For the Users_ , only to learn now that he had sent a User to fight CLU.

  
A tall figure came toward them as they stood there, walking from the portal dais itself. "You have to actually stand in the portal to access it," said Tron in a dry voice.

"Yeah," Sam replied, his voice a little shaky. "You're here..."

Tron's helmeted head dipped slightly in acknowledgement. "I told you I would be here; that I would see you leave. You'll be safe in the User world."

"You're coming with us, right?" asked Sam. Tron shook his head in denial.

"No. I'm staying here, in the system. The Grid needs me to keep it safe. And you know why I can't leave right now, Sam. I told you...did you think that I would feel any different about it, just because I would be in the User world?"  
I just....I can't. Not now."

"I'm coming back," Sam said, "I am coming back to be with you, until you are ready to be with me in the User world again. I am not going to just leave you here."

A long sigh greeted this declaration. "Sam...."

"Not arguing with you on this," Sam said stubbornly, "When I get Feral settled, I'm coming back." He gave the security monitor a small smile. "You can't change my mind, you know. Hey, even Alan can't get me to change my mind when I get like this."

Sam turned and took the hand of the woman who had been watching their exchange curiously. He led her past the security program and down to the portal's dais. She kept turning back to look over her shoulder at the dark program that stood guarding the bridge. "Know him..." she said, a confused look on her face as Sam tugged her up to the dais to the portal's beam. Feral let Sam lead her to stand with him in the portal and watched as he undocked his disc to activate it. He lifted the disc up, watching as it rose slightly in the air.

Suddenly, just as the beam began to activate, she screamed, her voice shrill, panicked, and broken, " _No_! That program...my partner!" Sam had to grab her as she tried to lunge from the beam; the memory of tiny bits of CLU being pulled from the sysadmin vivid in his mind as he pulled her further back into the beam. He wasn't sure if leaving the beam when it had been activated would injure a User or not, but he wasn't about to take the chance. Further down the bridge, the dark figure of Tron turned to see the two of them struggling.

And then the beam took them; merging them with the light.

 

* * *

 

 

They arrived in the dim light of the basement, Sam holding a Feral that was now crying out incoherently. Occasionally, he could make out pleas for him to take her back; that she needed to find her partner again.  Sam loosened his grip on Feral, to lessen the chance that she would feel trapped and try to fight her way free. He held her gently as her wild cries slowly became a soft sobbing; murmuring soft 'ssshhh-ing' noises to her in an attempt to calm her down. In time, the sobs slowed to broken, hiccupping gasps; and Feral blinked up at Sam in the dimly lit room.

"Please," she begged, her face wet with tears. "Can't lose him again..."  
  
Sam hugged her when she said that. "I know, I know," he told her. Silently the words "I don't want to lose him, either," echoed in his mind.

 

 

* * *

When Feral had calmed down enough, Sam took stock of the situation. What he saw when more of the lights were turned on surprised him. Where on the grid there had been first a grid-suited and armored program, and later a woman in a white shift that watched everything with wary eyes; now stood a small woman in dusty black cargo pants, boots, and a leather motorcycle jacket, blinking under the lights. She looked around his dad's old hidden office as though she had never seen it before...or was trying to remember if she ever had.

Not knowing what else to do or where to take her, Sam decided that the best course of action was to take her to his place. The old garage was far enough away from casual visitors that Feral would be able to recover her memories without him having to explain her presence to anyone. At least, he hoped that she would recover her memories. Sam had no idea what he would do if she didn't.

The ride to the garage was easy enough...once he had convinced her to get on his motorcycle.

"No," she had said, stubbornly shaking her head and crossing her arms over her chest. "Wrong one...not mine."

Sam let out an exasperated sigh. "I know it's not a lightcycle. Just get on behind me and we will go somewhere safe; I promise. It's okay."

That had only earned him an irritated glare, followed by, "Wrong...mine...not...not...” she struggled with the word for a moment, motioning at the bike before blurting out, "--Ducati!"

A moment later, understanding dawned on him. "You have a bike...and it's not a Ducati?" he asked her.

"Yes!"

"Well, that's really great...and I'm happy that you remember that; however, this bike is mine. I have no idea where your bike is at; which means we're gonna ride mine. So, will you get on, please?" A disgruntled look met this request, but was followed by Feral's hands resting lightly on his hips as she swung her leg over the motorcycle.

"No helmet," she grumbled to Sam's back. "Stupid." The rest of the ride was much smoother. She had excellent balance--exactly what he should expect, he thought to himself wryly, considering how well she had handled her lightcycle--and he barely felt her hands on his hips or her weight against his back.

When they reached Sam's place, he parked the Ducati on the gravel outside, and hit the garage door opener. Near him, Feral stood, looking around at the breeze blowing the long grass around the garage into waves to match the water that flowed by just outside the door. Without the engine of the motorcycle running, you could hear the boat traffic on the water and the cries of the seabirds. The garage door rumbled loudly as it grudgingly opened for them. Immediately, a small black and white blur of fur darted out of the garage and ran out towards them; dancing and wriggling with excitement as it alternated between jumping up against Sam's jean-clad legs and barking at Feral. Sam turned, saying, "Don't worry, Marv's friendly. He just gets...." His voice broke off at the look of wonder and happiness on her upturned face; a face that Marv was enthusiastically licking with a long pink tongue as she crouched down for the dog to reach her. "I guess you guys are going to get along," he said softly.

The day had been warm when they had arrived in the arcade basement; and when added to the ride home, had left Sam wanting a shower and some clean clothes. Another look at the dust-covered cargo pants and worn flannel shirt that had been revealed when he helped Feral to remove her jacket reminded him now that she would probably appreciate one, as well. If she remembered what a shower was.

She didn't. And watching her try to undress forcibly reminded him of the Sirens at the arena. 'It has a zipper,' he remembered saying as they cut his favorite jacket off of him. Thankfully, there was no need to cut anything off of Feral. It took longer than it normally would for someone to undress; mainly because Sam was trying not to look at her as he unbuttoned, unzipped, and tugged to get her out of her clothing. Once the shower was running, however, it took no time at all to entice her into it. The hot running water seemed to do all the work in that area, with Feral only vacating it when the water suddenly turned icy. Just as well, thought Sam as he tried to show her how to put on the clothes he had found for her to wear; at this rate he was going to need that cold shower soon enough.

Sam had found a long-sleeved, button-up shirt and a pair of his boxers in the clean laundry for her to wear. His plans to leave them folded in the bathroom and try to yell instructions on dressing through the door were ruined; however, when the hot water abruptly ran out while he was bringing in the clothes and a fresh towel. He had not even been all the way through the door when Feral had yelped abruptly and jumped backwards out from behind the shower curtain; almost knocking Sam over as she collided with him. She had turned, shivering, and stared up at him from between locks of wet hair. Sam stared back, his mouth suddenly dry as he tried desperately not to stare at the way the water beaded up and ran down her skin. A myriad collection of small thin scars, old and faded, were scattered over her body. "Uuuhhhmmm....I brought you a towel to dry off with...and some clean clothes," he said, passing over the towel. He put the clothes on the edge of the sink, turning away to face the sink and not the woman awkwardly patting herself dry with the towel behind him. As plans went, it wasn't a total failure--he could still see her, but only the tops of her shoulders and neck.  
  
She had much more trouble with the clothes. She figured out how to put on his boxers by herself; keeping them up, however, proved to be the challenge. Sam finally turned and showed her how to roll the waistband down until the boxers stayed up. The challenge for Sam there was ignoring the pair of soft breasts that brushed against him every time that Feral took a breath or leaned forward to get a better look at what he was doing. Getting the shirt on seemed to be easy enough for her, fastening the buttons...not so much. The increasingly irritated grumbles and 'huffs' coming from the person behind him led to Sam turning back around to see Feral staring in frustration at the small buttons and buttonholes; as she tried to get them fastened with fingers that appeared to have suddenly become clumsy and fumbling.

'Tron didn't have any trouble when he came here from the Grid,' Sam thought to himself. He had only had to show the security program something once for Tron to be able to do it himself. Why was it then, that this progr--he cut the thought off suddenly. She wasn't a program. Feral was a User who had spent what had seemed to her to be almost two hundred years with CLU trying to turn her into a program. Who really knew when CLU had recoded her? She had learned how to live in a world where almost everything worked differently. And now, she was back in a world that was no longer familiar; with things that she couldn't remember but KNEW she should be able to do. Would his dad have been much better if he had been able to leave the Grid with them? And, according to Quorra, Dad had tried to remake his hide-out in the Outlands of the Grid to resemble the User world as much as possible.

Feral looked up at him, the look on her face frustrated, baffled, and a little lost. "Here, let me help," Sam said, gently taking the edges of the shirt in his hands and lining up the buttonholes with the buttons. She watched, her hands hovering near his as he fastened up the buttons on the shirt, leaving the top two buttons undone. He then slowly rolled up the sleeves until they no longer hung over her hands. "There you go," he told her, stepping back.  
  
She raised her eyes to meet his. "Thank you," she said. Feral's face lit up at the realization that she had been able to say what she meant clearly.

"Not a problem," he replied, smiling. "Make yourself at home; I need to take Marv out for bit. I'll be busy for a little while...will you be alright by yourself?"

Feral nodded and watched as Sam grabbed a leash from a hook on the wall and called Marv over. Straightening up, he looked around and shrugged. "Check out anything you want; we'll be back soon. C'mon Marv," he said, leading the small dog out the garage door.

 

* * *

 

She watched as the two of them jogged down the driveway towards the road. Turning her attention back to the room surrounding her, Feral began to explore; picking up objects and looking closely at them, opening doors and looking through them. She wasn't sure where she was now. Truthfully, she didn't care much. What was important to her right now, was trying to find information on her partner program. If she had just recognized him sooner.... He had been there, so close she could have touched him. And now, she didn't know where he was. It didn't matter what else happened in this place; now that she knew that his processes were still running she was determined to find him.

She had not found any more information relating to her partner before Sam Flynn returned with the--dog? yes, dog--in tow. He had not even unfastened Marv's leash before Feral was by his side.  
  
"I need to find him," she said, proud that her vocal processes were now running cleanly, with no apparent glitches. "I need my main program. Please, you talked to him. Take me back to him."

"Main progr---Feral, you need to stay here. It's okay, you'll be fine here," Sam told her.

Feral shook her head, following Sam as he went to the kitchen to fill Marv's food bowl. "No, you don't understand. I'm his accessory program...I need to know where he is. Please, Sam Flynn, help me." She couldn't keep a trace of desperation from leaking into her voice as she continued speaking. "I am not supposed to function independently without orders; and I don't have any. I have to update runtime parameters with my main program to allow it."  
  
"Sam Flynn..." she reached out suddenly to grab his arm; only to have Sam jerk himself away from her hand, his eyes wide and nervous as he looked at her. Feral suddenly got a flash of memory; herself, disc in hand, fighting with Sam Flynn. She dropped her hand and looked at the floor, mumbling "I'm sorry...I didn't..."

"No, it's fine," Sam said his voice a little tight as he let out his breath. "I just gotta feed Marv." He pushed past her and went to put the dog's bowl down near the dog bed on the floor. "I'm going to take a shower," he told her, walking to a ladder that lead up to what she had determined to be his primary sleeping area. He reappeared a few moments later, clothes in his hand, and went into the room that held what Sam had called a 'shower'. A short time later, the sound of running water was heard coming from the small room.

She resumed her search of the main room, going through text materials in her desire to find a way to reconnect with her partner program. The sound of the smaller door to the dwelling opening caught her attention, drawing it to the figure that was moving in the shadows of what Sam had called the kitchen. There was a small 'thwap' of hard copy text documents landing on the counter. "I just stopped by to drop off those notes for you, Sam," the figure called, his voice deep and resonant. "You should really go over th--Dear God!" the voice said in a shocked tone, as keys fell from fingers that had suddenly gone numb. Another step brought him into the light, revealing his face.

"You're here," she breathed. "Sam Flynn brought you here."

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, who wants to guess who just showed up?
> 
> I was going to post this as two chapters originally...I hope you liked having it as one, instead.


	10. An Unexpected Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam has an unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's something about seeing someone unexpected. But where do they know each other from?

Alan stared at the apparition that was standing in Sam's living room, wearing what looked like the blue shirt that he had loaned Sam at one time and never retrieved, and a pair of boxers. The small metallic jingle and clash of his keys hitting the floor went unnoticed as he stared at a face he had worried that he would never see again for the past three years. That face looked up from the stack of magazines it had been examining to turn in Alan's direction. He watched as her hazel eyes lit up and, in a voice barely more than a breath, she said, "You're here. Sam Flynn brought you here."

She came towards him, bare feet tangling in a pile of discarded magazines and books on the floor; legs bumping into the coffee table in her haste to reach him. A smile grew on her face as she grew closer. "I missed you," she told him as she moved nearer to him. "I didn't know if he would help me...but you're here." She wrapped her arms tight around Alan as soon as she was close enough to touch him, burying her face in his chest.

"I missed you, too," Alan said, hugging her back. "How did Sam...? Where...?" He stopped, unable to decide what to ask first.

  
She drew back slightly to look at his face, her eyes shining. "He fixed your vocal processes!" she said, her voice excited. "And repaired the code damage," she continued, reaching up to touch his cheek gently. "Did he need to change your render to affect the repair?" When she noticed the look of confusion on his face, she shook her head. "It doesn't matter. All that is important is you are here..."

Confused, Alan tilted his head slightly to look her in the eyes. "Fixed my ...vocal processes? Code damage? What are you talking about?"

Now it was the hazel eyes turn to hold a look of confusion. "I don't understand, Rinzler. Do you not...?" She stopped and pulled away from him. "You're not Rinzler," she said, flatly. "You look like him, but you're not." Her hands came up as though to hold herself, only to stop and hover; as if they could not decide if they should cradle her head or wrap around her chest. "Please," she asked, her voice pleading with him. "Where is he?" She took a step back, stumbling a little as she did so.

Alan had no idea what she was talking about. He had been starting to feel as though Flynn's old arcade was a bad omen since the two friends of his that used it as a living space, even if only for a night, had disappeared. At one point he had made Sam promise him that he would never spend the night there; unwilling to risk his godson. While he had never admitted it, he had wondered if he would spend the next twenty years trying to find her as well.

"I need to find him," she said, her eyes frantic as she stumbled back another step. "I need my main program so I can update my parameters if I am expected to function independently. I can't lose him... I've lost him too many times...." The last few words were mumbled, almost inaudible. She stood, weaving a little as she repeated; "Please, please," in a voice that was barely more than a breath.

"KayJay," Alan said, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked closer at her. "Are you okay?"

"Where is Rinzler? Have to find him...find RT..." She tried to take another step backwards, only to come close falling as she did so.

"KayJay..."

"No, not  _KayJ—“_ she shook her head and lost her balance. She suddenly dropped to the floor, looking like a puppet with half of its strings cut.

Alan bolted to where she had fallen. "Sam!" he yelled, " _SAM_!" He started to lift her up into his arms, worried by the unfocused expression on her face. "No, no, no...KayJay...stay with me, sweetheart..." he pleaded with her, "don't go to sleep now... SAM!"

A very wet Sam, wearing only a towel, seemed to appear out of thin air as Alan carried her to the couch. "What's wrong? What happened? Alan...what's going on?"

"I think she's having an insulin reaction," Alan said, breathing hard just a little as he laid her on the couch. His back began to immediately inform him that at his age playing hero meant that he would pay the cost, later. "Get some orange juice ...and hurry!"

Sam nodded and ran the few steps to the kitchen, his wet feet slipping a little on the concrete floor. Grabbing a glass from the dish drying rack, he yanked open the fridge and poured the juice into it. He practically ran back to Alan, who was shaking her and telling her to stay awake a little longer.

"Is this enough?" Sam asked nervously, passing over the glass of orange juice to Alan. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"This will do for the moment," Alan said, taking the glass without even glancing at it, his eyes on the feebly struggling form trying to push him away with uncoordinated hands. "I came to drop off some notes for next Monday’s meeting."

"How long since the last time that she ate?" Alan asked Sam.

"Uh, not really sure." Sam said, nervously watching as Alan held her up in his arms and coaxed her into drinking, ignoring the juice that spilled from the corner of her mouth as he did so. "I haven't seen her eat anything..."

"How long has she been staying at your place?"

Without stopping to think that Alan must have meant the old garage, Sam answered, "I'm not certain. A day...day and a half, maybe?"

Alan turned to give Sam an incredulous look before yelling at him. "You had a diabetic at your place and didn't give her anything to eat for at least a day or a day and a half! SAM!   _WHAT WERE YOU THINKING_!?"

"I didn't know she was diabetic! And she never said anything about wanting something to eat!" Sam said defensively. "I mean if she was hungry you would think she... Wait a minute... You know that she's diabetic--- _you know her_!?"

"Of course I know KayJay; she's a good friend of mine."

  
"You know her name!? Alan, I'm not sure that  _she_  knows her name, right now..." Sam stopped speaking and swallowed, his attention held by his godfather's steely gaze.

Alan looked at him for a moment before saying, in a steady voice that somehow managed to be as hard as iron, " _Samuel Flynn_ , I am going to make sure that KayJay is alright. When I am certain that she is; you and I are going to have a long talk. We are going to talk about whatever it is that you and Quorra have been up to for the last several months. I am tired of all of the games and secrets. And you are going to explain to me why it is that my friend thinks that I have been 'repaired' somehow; and cannot remember who I am, and apparently, who she is, as well. You can also tell me what she's doing in your underwear, while you're at it." The younger man swallowed hard at that one, feeling like he was still a teenager who had been caught sneaking a girl in through his bedroom window. Alan pointed a finger at him as he continued speaking.  
"And, Sam...not having this conversation?  _Not_  an option."

The young man that he had raised like a son dropped his head for a moment. Raising it back up to look Alan in the eyes as he raked his fingers through his hair, Sam said, "Well, I'm going to go put some clothes on, then. You're gonna want to get comfortable, Alan. This is going to take a while to go over everything."  
But it's one hell of a story."

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for this one, folks. I hope you liked it. I will be adding to their story in other works...probably.
> 
> Feel free to yell questions, comments, and generalized 'what have you done!'s' at me.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah...I had not originally planned on this going this far...ummmmmm.....
> 
> I blame the voices....


End file.
